Keeping a Research Library
Up to Date

RICHARD H. LOGSDON
 

TH E university research library as we know it today is the
product of 2oth century developments in research and
education. When Low Memorial Library was first
opened just before the beginning of the century, Columbia's col¬
lections numbered 300,000 volumes. With the present collections
at 3,000,000 volumes, this means that nine of every ten books cur¬
rently owned were acquired since 1900. Half of the collection has
been acquired since the opening of Butler Library in 1934, while
one out of every four books has come to us in the last dozen years.
This growth is but a reflection of the continued expansion of the
University's fields of interest and of the enormous increase in
publication of books, journals, and documents of scholarly inter¬
est. The explosion of knowledge, characteristic of our time,
coupled with the necessity to be better informed about other
countries of the world, has brought new challenges to Columbia
as to every university library that is determined to meet the litera¬
ture needs of students and faculty.

Reference has been made to the library as the "Heart of the
University." There is no record in the literature as to the origin
of this reference, but regardless of the metaphor used, "books" in
the broad sense continue to constitute the principal medium for
the storage and communication of ideas. The faculty, of course, is
the key influence, but a faculty is not likely to maintain its stand¬
ing unless communication with colleagues is possible both directly
and through books, journals and documents. While the student
learns much in the classroom and the laboratory, he spends perhaps
much less than a third of his normal working week in direct as¬
sociation with his teachers. Lie must go to his textbooks, and par-

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